Look Back In Anger

 It's been another hard day on the planet. A whole mess of them, as a matter of fact. This past year will not be remembered for all of the joy and excitement it brought to this world. 

2025 saw the loss of Rob Reiner, Diane Keaton and Ozzy Osbourne to name just a few. It might not be too rough an angle to suggest that these were the ones who perhaps cosmically got off easily. They didn't have to stick around and watch as things went from rotten to really rotten. Finding a corner of this past calendar that was not diminished in some way by the convicted felon who somehow found his way into the rubble that used to be the White House would be a fool's errand. 

Not that there have not been moments of sunlight poking through the gloom. I truly enjoyed my trip to the moving picture show of the most recent iteration of Superman. For a couple of hours, I actually enjoyed watching a hero, an immigrant, working to save his home from the machinations of an evil billionaire bent on putting his name on everything he touches. Spoiler alert: Supes doesn't beat him up. His dog does. 

If I ruminated on things long enough, I might be able to come up with a few more moments of hope and peace, but mostly there was that seemingly omnipresent orange haze that seemed to obscure most every interaction, experience and home appliance. Each day brought a new absurd hatefully delivered message or decree. The Department of Defense morphed into the Department of War. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency had its budget increased to nearly thirty billion dollars, while the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment was hired to shut down the Department of Education. 

The United States is blowing up fishing boats and bombing Nigeria on Christmas.

Big Bird was sent packing as well as Public Broadcasting would not be spared. Sesame Street has been eliminated. Meanwhile, the richest man in the world stepped in to make the government more efficient by leaving children across the globe to starve. 

As prices continue to climb for most everything from groceries to health care, more and more Americans will suffer and starve while the convicted felon continues to promote himself and the fancy new marble armrests he wants to install in the Epstein Center for the Performing Arts. Sounds a little excessive, but he doesn't care. He's not paying for it. 

We are. 

Every day. 

This year.

Yuck.